


Vigil

by Ruby_Wren



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:42:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8152669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_Wren/pseuds/Ruby_Wren
Summary: The archdemon is dead.  Ferelden is saved.  But Zevran can't celebrate.  He can only wait for her to wake.





	

Light flashed along the blade, startlingly bright in the shadows.  The room was full of shadows.  There were only a few candles, just enough for the healers to work by.  Zevran would allow no more.

She would not die.

Miri lay on the bed.  She breathed.  He knew _knew_ that she breathed because he knew very well what one looked like when they did not breath, but she was so still, and he…

Waited.  In the darkest corner.  The dagger dancing over his fingers, mindless and constant.  He paid little heed to it, and none at all to the nicks his fingers collected as the blade faltered, now and then again.  He did not care.  He only watched the blade so he would not watch the bed.  There was no need to watch it.  It was not as if she was going to die.  It was not as if he need be here.

She would wake.  

She would.

 

_The pain was nothing.  Nothing like he had ever felt, and he had felt a great deal of pain in his life.  It was always endurable.  Had always been.  This was very nearly not.  It was an ache, though the word did not come close to this sensation of wrongness reverberating through his ears, his head, along every bone._

_The pain was nothing.  Nothing to the need to find her.  He pushed himself to his feet, forced himself to stand.  Amidst all the blood and bodies and smoke and the great fallen form of the archdemon._

_He saw her then, half buried under the dragon, and the pain was nothing as he ran to her._

 

It had been Wynne who guided them back.  Who sent word ahead for healers as Zevran carried Miri, her body limp and broken in his grasp.  He made a vow to himself as he collected cuts along his fingers.  He would be ever grateful to Wynne.  

He supposed he must be grateful to that fool Alistair as well.  The boy could call himself king now, but king he had been when they returned, demanding a room be prepared and healers brought, barking orders as if he had been born to the crown.

Zevran had been grateful.  For that.  But once the healers had left, the boy king had ordered candles brought in, row upon row of them, set around her like a blasted funeral.  And flowers — _flowers_ — wreaths of them — and Zevran’s gratitude would not extended that far.  He would not have her lighted and wreathed for the altar when she was _not_ dead, when she would not die.  He had hurled the candles into the corridor, one by one, smashed the vases, and promised to do the like to anyone fool enough to bring more, and then he had slid down into a dark corner of the room.  And waited.

He had been waiting for…for some time now.  It had been hours, days, forever — the blade faltered — it had been _forever_ and she was so still.  Why was she so still?  Zevran ran a shaking hand over his mouth.  He would go mad, if she did not move soon.  He would rip apart and go mad.

 

_He had gone mad there, on the top of that tower.  He only saw her_ — _her skin grey with soot, her dark eyes closed, still, too still, she could not be so_ _still_ _.  Heard only the chanting.  The desperate, fevered words, over and again like a prayer as he rocked her.  He never prayed, he did not know how to pray, but if that was what it took he swore he would learn.  “You will not die.  You will not die.  You will_ _not_ _die.”_

_He had not known it was his voice until Alistair was there, face white underneath the dirt and blood, tears streaking his face, mewling.  “I’m so sorry, Zevran.”  He had turned on Alistair, savagely, madly, cursing for him to shut his fucking mouth.  She would not die.  He would not let her die.  Terror was a mad thing inside him, as he commanded her, kissed her, begged her._

_It had been Wynne who finally reached him.  She had not tried to speak nonsense, or asked him to let Miri go, but had only knelt beside him to examine her.  To stop Alistair’s bleating and take gentle, steely charge.  Wynne had been the one to say, “She’s alive.”_

The door opened.  When he did not hear the footsteps he knew it was Leliana.  She paused, but she did not go to the bed.  Instead she crossed to him.  He wished she would not; it meant she would want to talk.

He did not look at her in as she crouched in front of him.  He watched the dagger, quick and bright.  Felt the stinging kiss of it on his skin.  He could allow himself to feel that.

“Zevran.”  Her voice was gentle, as was her hand on his arm.

He did not look at her, but he arched a mocking brow.  “ _Leliana_.”

“There has been no change?”  When he did not respond, she went on.  “When did you last eat?  Sleep?”

He gave a razored smile.  “Crows do not need sleep.”

“Everyone needs sleep, particularly after they fight an army of darkspawn.”  Her voice was not so gentle now.  “You must stop this foolishness.  You _must_.”  Her hand tightened on his arm.  “Come with me.  Let me get you something to eat.”

“I will eat when she does.  When she wakes.”

“And if she does not?”

Now he did look at her.  “Get out.”

“If she does _not_ ,” Leliana said again, notching each word like arrows.  “What will you do then?  Will you stay here?  Starve yourself?  The mighty Crow, starving yourself?  Do you think any of us want that?  Do you think she would?”

He surged to his feet.  “I said to _get out!_ ”

She gave him a searching look, cutting through him far too deeply.  “Give me the dagger.”

Zevran held out his hand, flipping the dagger along his fingers with ease.  “This one?”  He tilted his head, as if considering it.  The blade was moving faster now.  He had stopped being careful.  A thousand little cuts, and he would bleed and bleed and bleed.  “This one I think I will keep.”

“Zevran — ”

“Take it from me, if you would care to try.”  Blood dripped from his fingers.  Little red drops, dark on the stone floor.  Gleaming in the candlelight.

She did not care to.

He listened to the latch click shut as she shut the door behind her.  The sound echoed through him, and the dagger slipped through his fingers, clattering on the tile-work.

 

_They had been here, in this room, only the other night.  In the last stolen hours before the battle.  They should have rested, as there was a fight to come and an archdemon to kill, but they chose not to.  He remembered collapsing, spent and sweating, his face against the soft skin of her belly.  Breathless and grinning, with just enough energy to press kisses up her abdomen, along her ribs, to the secret sensitive spots that made her laugh.  She was always so intense, so focused; he had been delighted to find that she was so very ticklish.  He had never thought he would enjoy making someone laugh in bed, but he loved her laughter._

_He felt her fingers trail through his hair, along his cheek.  “Zevran.”_

_“Mmm?”  He looked up, resting his chin on her stomach.  She was watching him, and there was laughter there, but something else with it.  Her dark eyes were warm and tender and, Maker, he loved how she looked at him.  The heat and the focus.  As if he mattered.  As if he was all that mattered.  How would it feel to wake every morning to those eyes?  To know, as sure as the sun rose, that she would be there, and he would see her look at him like that.  To have every day and every moment to earn that look._

_“I love you.”_

_He wanted to say_ **_of course you do_ ** _or_ **_how could you not_ ** _, something flippant and light and easy.  It was not as if they had never said those words before.  He had heard her say them, many ways.  Angry and irritated and teasing and sweet.  She said it now simply, and it stole any joke he might have made._

_“Say them to me again,” he told her as her fingers wound through his hair.  “When the battle is done and we have vanquished our enemies, we will come back here, to this room.  Say it to me then.”  He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face into her belly.  “Promise me.”_

 

She hadn’t promised.  She had pulled him up so she could kiss him, and she had not lied.  Now they were here, back here, and she — she was still not awake, and he could not bear it, he could _not_ — he was at the bed, groping blindly for her hand, pressing it to his cheek as she had only a few nights before, and his breath so ragged and loud it was nearly sobs.  He wanted to yell at her, to shout and shake her until he could only feel the anger, not the fear.  He could hear himself begging, madly, mindlessly, _wake for me, wake and I will take you to Rivain, I will show you the snows of the Anderfels, we will sail the seas together, together, if you wake for me, live, please, please, Mirea, for me…_ He would not let himself fear, because to fear would be to admit, and he would never — he would — he _couldn’t_ —

He felt, through his madness, the touch.  The brush of fingers through his hair.  “Zevran?”

Her voice was barely more than a breath.


End file.
